Big Medicine
Chapter 3—Preacher Lady
Everybody was coming to watch the huck and the fight that Donal's courier kid had posted around town on handbills. The crowd was already thick. The kid did his job well.
The Medicine Wagon eased into the open space in front of the Demon Room.
Teamsters, railroad laborers, and camp followers were already drifting out of the tents and saloons. The newspaper stories from the last town were passed around, and the whole Canyon was talking about the miraculous cures and bare knuckles fight coming up.
Medicine Man didn't waste any time. He stepped down from the bench, his dusty trail coat replaced by the brilliant flash of his red tux, top hat and tails. The side panels of Traveller began to fold out, wood creaking, massive impossible depth as the stage show unfolded right there and then.
Awnings snapped open, tables clicked into place, and a circus smell of sawdust, old parchment and Crimson Elixir wafted into the air of Canyon Diablo.
Medicine Man stepped up onto the platform stage that now extended from Traveller's side, the fairground letters behind him shiny and sharp under the late sun. He raised his hands, voice shifting into a powerful, rhythmic, theatrical patter, that cut right over the roar.
"Gatha 'round, folks! Gatha 'round! Heap Big Medicine Wagon, open for business heah!"
He held up a bottle of Crimson Elixir, red glass flashing like a ruby in the dust.
"Step right up, citizens of Canyon Diablo! I have crossed the territories to bring you a Sovereign Remedy! A cure for ague, fever, gout, grinding of the bones!"
He pointed straight into the crowd. A teamster with a crippled, stiff wrist got pulled onto the stage. The old man applied a few drops of oil, removing his hat, wrapped the forearm, and with a swift, crackling pop, the man’s fingers opened wider.
The crowd let out a low, collective roar. An old camp washerwoman, bent double, took a long swallow of Crimson Elixir and straightened up with a tearful shout, running off the steps and down the street.
The huck was working flawlessly. The crimson hat moved hypnotically, reflecting the sun, now back on the Medicine Man's head, tipped back as he worked the huck, pulled lower as he stared intensely into the eyes of the audience. He bent low at the knees and pointed out people to step up. The silver dollars were clinking steadily into the sales boxes as he looked to the sky, waving his cane.
Then the canvas flap of the Demon Room flew open wide and Daniel stepped out, pulling his shirt over his long blond hair, tossing his wide hat back into the saloon.
His torso was thick with muscle, scarred from campaign skirmishes, long goatee framing a grin that told the crowd all they wanted to know.
He leaped onto the open platform, which suddenly expanded into a wide, sawdust-covered prize ring, raising his fists together over his head.
Lynch now knew who the opponent was for the brawl this afternoon, stepping down from Charger’s saddle as his hat dropped to the ground.
He stripped off his new denim shirt, revealing the hard, lean frame of an Irish Brigade veteran, purple noose burn standing out starkly.
Both men looked across the ring and realized exactly who they faced: citizens of the liminal space surrounding The Veil.
Each refused the heavy leather gloves held out. This was a bare-knuckle brawl under old-school rules.
They began to dance across the sawdust, limbering up their shoulders, throwing fast snappy combinations into the air. Their footwork was fancy, rhythmic, perfectly synchronized to fire the crowd into a frenzy.
Daniel pointed a massive fist over the heads of the crowd, calling out a wealthy rail contractor to double his bet, while Lynch locked eyes with the mercantile owner, who stepped between them with a heavy brass watch to referee the rounds.
The circle of teamsters and railroad men pressed tight against the Medicine Wagon’s ring, a roar shaking Main Street.
Both men hung their gunbelts nearby on hooks at the corners of Traveller, touching fists.
Then the mercantile proprietor stepped into the center, face turning hard, stern as a hanging judge. He extended both his palms, turned up flat and waiting.
No words were needed. Both men sheepishly handed over an assortment of wicked knives. The crowd let out long, low whistles and appreciative murmurs as the iron came out.
Daniel grinned, reached into his waistband, and pulled out a heavy, stag-handled Bowie knife with a crossguard thick enough to stop a cavalry sabre. He laid it into the merchant's right hand.
Then he pulled a small, double-edged boot dagger from his trousers and laid that one down, too. A long, narrow dagger with a wavy blade came out of his right moccasin. A sharpened rail spike came out of the left. A folding straight razor appeared from a pouch at his neck. He held his hands high.
The referee proceeded to pull a large nail out of one cuff and a knitting needle from the other.
Lynch didn't blink. He reached behind his back and slid out a wicked, foot long Arkansas Toothpick from his waistband. From his left pocket a stout dagger of six inch length. Out of his collar he removed a large, wicked Ghurka knife, to a low moan from the crowd.
The referee pointed at his boot. An eight inch stiletto slid from the right one. With a grin, a folding saw appeared from the left, Daniel raising an eyebrow, nodding in approval.
He reached into the left sleeve and three throwing knives came out.
The referee frowned, and two more slid into his hand, drawing applause from both Daniel and the crowd. From his other sleeve he withdrew a truly impressive Bowie knife.
Then, from the inner pocket of his discarded vest, he pulled a thin, bone-handled folding steel spike, of the kind used by the Irish Brigade for close-quarter trench clearing.
He laid these across the merchant’s left palm.
The merchant weighed the iron for a second, gave both men a final warning look, and stepped back through the ropes, holding the collection of blades high so the teamsters and rail workers could easily see the rules were strictly fists and boots.
The two fighters turned back to the center. They approached the line, Daniel's now-bare feet gripping the fresh sawdust on the wagon’s platform.
They touched knuckles again, and stepped back. Daniel’s long blond hair swung kike a curtain as he bobbled his weight, shoulders rolling, while Lynch planted his dogger-heeled boots wide, eyes locked straight onto the big man's chin.
The merchant dropped his arm. The brass watch clicked.
They each struck suddenly, big left hands. Both connected. Eyes went wide, they shook their heads, and both went with a huge right. Both connected, each staggering.
Both rubbed their jaws, circling with big grins. Again both went to left uppercuts, blinding shots.
Daniel’s jaw took the full force of the Irishman’s knuckles, long goatee flying back over his shoulder.
Lynch’s head snapped sideways, the violent impact rattling the raw, purple rope burn on his neck.
For one heartbeat, the shouting from the teamsters and the railroad labor died flat, in the red mud of Canyon Diablo 's main drag.
Then suddenly the entire town went absolutely feral, running to the counter, arms raised as hard dollars began slamming down onto the sales counters, people thundering and bellowing as the betting odds shattered.
Lynch straightened up away from the woodwork, hand coming up to rub his jaw, tasting the copper tang of fresh blood where his tooth had cut the inside of the lip.
Across the sawdust, Daniel was doing the exact same thing, thick thumb wiping dust and blood from his handlebar moustache.
They began to circle again, feet whispering through the sawdust, guards back up, waiting for the next collision.
Daniel approached, fists high in the modern style, wide stance. Lynch crouched forward slightly, fists guarding his face.
Suddenly Daniel sat fast, extending both legs between Lynch's ankles, rolling to one side and bringing Lynch onto his back.
Both sat up, facing each other, and Lynch grabbed a handful of Daniel's beard with his right, giving out two quick jabs with his left.
Daniel responded by grabbing a double handful of Lynch's face, trying to gouge an eye, Lynch grabbing Daniel's long hair, yanking his head back.
Then, the crack of a gunshot shattered the roar of the crowd, the bullet biting deep into the thick crimson paneling of Traveller with a sharp, splintering wood sound.
Both men instantly rolled apart, diving for their guns, breaking from the grapple tight away.
Lynch let go of Daniel's long hair, throwing his weight into a hard, sideways roll across the platform toward his corner. Daniel dropped his hands from Lynch’s face, spinning low to the deck, kicking his legs clear of the ropes.
Lynch’s fingers closed around the heavy leather of his gun rig, ripping the Army .44 free of its grease-blackened leather.
Across the ring, Daniel’s hand was already wrapped around his own iron, hammer clicked back, a sound that carried over the terrified screaming of the crowd.
Teamsters and railroad labor dropped into the red mud of Main Street, scrambled behind the wagons and their massive buckboard wheels, clearing the line of fire.
Lynch dropped into a low, combat crouch behind the wooden rail of the ring, eyes scanning the rooftops and the gaps between the pine-plank saloons across from the Demon Room.
Daniel was right beside him, shoulder to shoulder, as he leveled his revolver toward the livery.
"Where'd it come from, Irish?" Daniel grunted, eyes tracking the smoke clearing the gap by O'Donall Vice.
Lynch didn't answer. He just cocked the Army .44 and pointed the long barrel straight toward the roof of the hardware store, where a silhouette moved behind a stack of green lumber.
Daniel suddenly bellowed, "HICKEY BLUE YOU GODDAM RASCAL!"
Dropping his colt next to Lynch, he leaped the ropes in a flash, grabbed Lynch's huge Arkansas toothpick, flashed a wild, wicked grin to him.
Then his bare feet slammed against the rough-sawn pine planks of the boardwalk, long blond hair flying back over his shoulders. THUMP THUMP THUMP!
"I had about enough a your horse shit, Hickey boy!” Daniel roared, voice carrying loud over the hiss of the locomotive at the siding.
He wasn't taking cover. He was charging the hardware store like a loose mortar shell, brandishing the massive blade high in the desert sun.
His long goatee twitched with pure adrenaline-fueled fury as he headed straight for the timber stacks on the roof.
Lynch didn't waste a heartbeat. He dropped over the wagon rail into the mud, and kept the long barrel of his .44 leveled at the hardware roof to cover the big man’s advance.
Out by the hitching post, Charger’s ears were pinned back, spirit face tracking the motion as the whole of Canyon Diablo held its breath, watching for the collision.
Lynch spotted a line of men coming up the street before the crowd did.
"Take cover!" He yelled, "got men comin' in!" a hoarse, ragged noise like ripping canvas from his damaged throat.
He grabbed Daniel's Peacemaker .45 off the platform and walked down the middle of the street, one gun held to each side, barrels facing up, making himself visible.
The crowd dispersed, instantly vanishing, as Lynch strode down the street towards the four men, who were approaching with hands hovering over their pistols in a ragged rank across the street.
As the men passed in front of the hardware store, a wild and terrifying scream split the sky, a battle cry.
“You’re outnumbered, you rascals!"
Daniel, running at full speed swan-dived off the roof, a rifle in one hand, Lynch's huge knife in the other, bowling over the two men on his side of the street, stabbed one through the eye, shot his groin, then levered the action, shot the other in the chest and worked the lever again as he rose.
The other two went for their guns. Lynch emptied both revolvers into 'em, as they jigged and jerked, finally straightening up, falling straight to their backs, spread eagled in the street.
The silence hit Main Street, heavy with the reek of black powder, hot grease, and raw coppery blood.
Daniel stood over the two bleeding heaps on his side, bare chest splattered with red, wiping the Arkansas toothpick on a dead man's trousers.
He looked back up the street through his long blond hair, handlebar moustache twitching into a wide, dangerous grin.
"Told ya, Irishman!" Daniel yelled, spitting a glob of blood into the mud. "Hickey's boys don't know how to count.”
As they shook hands, Medicine Man stepped down, sayin’ loud to the street, "Hickey Blue's men was outnumbered this time."
He turned in a circle, yelling, "Come on out y'all! it's ok now!"
No response. Quiet on the street. Too quiet.
The Preacher Lady stepped into the street, close by the Medicine Wagon, calling out. "Don't be too sure, Med! Lord's work ain't done yet!"
A murmur rose as she started down the street, brandishing a Bible and a machete.
Lynch and Daniel's eyes got big, as they looked slowly at each other, then turned around.
The four men in the street began to rise limply, as if pulled up by their collars, and Hickey Blue rolled off the roof, landing in a heap, head nearly severed from a huge gaping neck wound.
Then he was dragged to his feet the same way, like puppet strings pulling him up, head lolling at an unnatural angle.
Slowly, a dust devil wandered through town, crossed the line of jerking corpses making their way up the street, then faded away as the dirt blew off ‘em, revealing the truth.
"ZOMBIE RAIDERS!" yelled Medicine Man. "Doomed Rebs who killed the innocent!"
The murmur grew louder. Residents began creeping out from under stairwells, out from under boardwalks, out of alleys and businesses, brandishing cutlasses, cleavers, machetes, sharpened hoes, joining the Preacher Lady.
An army of righteousness, marching shoulder to shoulder down the middle of Main Street, to put the dead back into the dirt.
Lynch and Daniel stood in the center of the road, eyes wide but their grips tightening on their weapons.
Lynch’s crushed throat let out a low, dangerous growl as he readied the heavy Army .44, dogger heels digging into the mud, alongside Daniel with his Peacemaker.
The circus show was over. The War for Canyon Diablo had begun.
"DO NOT SHOOT THEM!" Thundered the Preacher Lady.
"The sulfur of gunpowder feeds their evil souls! Only sanctified steel can return them whence they came! REPEL THEM!" She shrieked.
The crowd charged, screaming hymns, scripture, the gospel chants of the rail crews at the darkening sky, a guttural roar filling the town.
Lynch and Daniel pivoted on their heels, sprinting hard through the oncoming wave of machetes, sharpened hoes, and raised bibles, heading straight back to Traveller.
Their blades! They needed their blades!
When they reached the Medicine Wagon, the local Catholic priest was sprinkling the pile of knives with holy water, uttering an invocation.
The two hard men skidded to a stop, Lynch placing the Arkansas toothpick on the pile, heads bowed, bare chests heaving from the sprint, hands clasped at their waists in reverent silence, while the priest shook the silver hyssop.
The holy water hissed against the cold iron blades like fat in a hot skillet.
The guttural roar of the town’s righteous army drowned the thud-thud of the railroad hammers on the bridge, creating a driving, rhythmic cadence that filled the entire canyon.
The red-orange sky over Canyon Diablo bruised into a deep, storm-dark purple, wind howling through the spokes of the Medicine Wagon as the invocation finished.
The steel was sanctified. The tools were ready.
Lynch and Daniel turned, just in time to see the corpses disappear, howling, into the boiling crowd, the shrieking Preacher Lady hacking in a frenzy. She stood on their shoulders and flung the head of Hickey Blue out over Canyon Diablo, as it burst into flames falling, falling, into the void.
A railroad lineman turned from high atop the skeletal framework of the piledriver gantry, a silhouette in the sky as he tracked the falling fire and heaved his pike.
It arced with the perfect, heavy trajectory of an iron harpoon and plunged through the flaming head of Hickey Blue from temple to temple, driving it deep into the Canyon beneath the uncompleted tracks.
Lynch and Daniel stood by Traveller, blessed blades heavy and cold in their fists.
They never had to strike a blow. The Army of Righteousness slaughtered the Raiders, nothing remaining but the smell of sulfur and burnt hair.
Out at the end of the line, the ox-driven crane let out a long screech as it reset its stabilizers on the wooden braces. The dead were back in the ditch, and the railroad still had to cross the canyon.
Daniel fired his Peacemaker into the air, screaming "DRINKS AT THE DEMON Y'ALL! FREE ROUNDS FOR THE TOWN!"
To which Medicine Man added, "Heap Big Medicine FREE till sundown!"
The Preacher Lady said, “make mine tequila, Dan!" laying a long, passionate kiss on him before heading into the saloon.
The Peacemaker shot started a mad stampede for the canvas flap of the Demon Room.
Med’s call for free Elixir had the remaining teamsters and washerwomen lined up at the Medicine Wagon clamoring, before the sun hit the canyon horizon.
Preacher Lady led the vanguard into the saloon, clutching her machete alongside her Bible, ready for that tequila.
Lynch sat with Daniel, feeling easy, enjoying Donal’s tequila while Preacher Lady sat on Daniel's lap, occasionally dancing on the bar while she quoted scripture, whenever a good strong verse occurred to her.
She returned to Daniel's lap with an enthusiastic kiss, "We gonna save your soul yet, you beautiful man, my wild Ishmael you are!"
Lynch excused himself, going outside for some air in the sunset. He admired the deepening colors of the Painted Desert, relaxing with a smoke.
A serious looking man with a gambler Stetson and Texas brim suddenly stood before him, two pearl handled Colts at his waist.
"Howdy, friend. I know you ain't here to be a problem. I know you helped this town and the Preacher Woman. And I want you gone by mornin. Sorry, mister. You smell like trouble. Ride out after coffee and keep on."
Lynch dropped his butt and ground it out. "Which way's good, Sheriff?"
"Concho Valley down south through Chevelon Canyon, head east at Snowflake, you'll find it. 'Bout fifty miles. Take care, friend."
The Sheriff strolled on, checking doorknobs to make sure stores were locked.
Out in the street, Jeb flicked his ears back, spirit face catching the last red gleam of the sun. The huge iron hammer over the gorge fell silent, the town closing doors for the night.
Traveller sat steady in the dark, the massive timber coach anchored into the Arizona soil. Jericho and Nineveh slept in the traces, massive grey shapes like carved granite in the moonlight.
Lynch led Jeb to the side hitch, gave the big Tobiano roan a final pat on his spirit face, and climbed up the steps into the wagon.
He had a fresh mount, a full cartridge box, a bottle of Donal's tequila and a clear map south to Concho Valley. He fell into bed, giving himself over to the tintype dreams of a mystery woman.